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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Farah Hannoun and Ken Hathaway

Holly Holm dismisses Ronda Rousey’s concussion claim prior to UFC 193 fight: ‘I was the better fighter that night’

LAS VEGAS – Holly Holm respectfully isn’t putting too much stock in Ronda Rousey’s recent comments about their 2015 fight.

Holm scored a massive upset knockout of the previously unbeaten Rousey to claim the women’s bantamweight title at UFC 193. Rousey recently revealed she entered the fight concussed prior to even suffering the head-kick knockout.

When Holm was asked to react to Rousey’s comments, the former champion simply said she outperformed her on the night.

“I say this all out of respect,” Holm told MMA Junkie and other reporters at Wednesday’s UFC 300 media day. “In order to have a big upset like that fight was, you have to have a dominant champion. So, without her being so dominant then I couldn’t have been able to have such an upset. With that being said, I was the better fighter. I was the better fighter that night, and every fighter at this point, if you’ve made a career of fighting, you’ve had a concussion at some point.

“You go back and look at some of my boxing fights and some of the things that I’ve done, I’ve definitely had some concussions. I’ll never sit here and use that as an excuse for any loss. I think that it’s probably just hard for her to really want to, like, maybe admit that I was just the better fighter. Was she so dominant and a good champion? One hundred percent. I give her that, but she wasn’t better than me and especially that night.”

Holm (15-6 MMA, 8-6 UFC) welcomes Kayla Harrison (16-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC) to the octagon in a bantamweight bout Saturday at UFC 300 (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+), which takes place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 300.

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